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Anadvice column is acolumn in a question and answer format. Typically, a (usually anonymous) reader writes to the media outlet with a problem in the form of a question, and the media outlet provides an answer or response.
The responses are written by an advice columnist (colloquially known in British English as anagony aunt, oragony uncle if the columnist is male). An advice columnist is someone who gives advice to people who send in problems to the media outlet. The image presented was originally of an older woman dispensing comforting advice and maternal wisdom, hence the name "aunt". Sometimes the author is in fact a composite or a team:Marjorie Proops's name appeared (with photo) long after she retired. The nominal writer may be apseudonym, or in effect a brand name; the accompanying picture may bear little resemblance to the actual author.
The Athenian Mercury contained the first known advice column in 1690.[1] Traditionally presented in amagazine ornewspaper, an advice column can also be delivered through other news media, such as theinternet andbroadcast news media.
The original advice columns ofThe Athenian Mercury covered a wide scope of information, answering questions on subjects such as science, history, and politics.John Dunton, the bookseller who establishedThe Athenian Mercury, enlisted experts in different fields to assist with the answers. As more people read the columns, questions on relationships increased.[1]
In 1704,Daniel Defoe began a public affairs journal,A Review of the Affairs of France. He used the name of a fictional society, the "Scandalous Club", as the "author" of a lighter section of theReview, and soon readers were sending 40–50 letters a week asking for advice from the Scandalous Club. At one point, Defoe complained of a backlog of 300 unanswered questions. Eventually, he spun off the letters-and-answers into a separate paper called theLittle Review.[2]
A few years after theLittle Review ended,The British Apollo newspaper provided advice to readers' questions in London.[2] These have been compiled and published asThe British Apollo: containing two thousand answers to curious questions in most arts and sciences, serious, comical, and humorous, approved of by many of the most learned and ingenious of both universities, and of the Royal-Society.[3]
Della Manley, the first recorded woman editor in Britain, began a gossip sheet in 1709, theFemale Tattler, which included advice to readers, making her the first Agony Aunt. Her advice column approach was soon mimicked in theFemale Spectator, a women's magazine launched byEliza Haywood.[4]
AsSilence Dogood and other characters,Benjamin Franklin offered advice in theNew England Courant and later in thePennsylvania Gazette.[1] The popular columnistDorothy Dix began her column in 1896.Marie Manning started "Dear Beatrice Fairfax" in 1898.[5] In 1902,George V. Hobart wrote a humorous advice column, "Dinkelspiel Answers Some Letters", in theSan Francisco Examiner. In 1906, a column called "A Bintel Brief" ran in theJewish Daily Forward in New York, which answered questions from new immigrants.[1] From 1941 to her death in 1962,Eleanor Roosevelt wrote an advice column,If You Ask Me, first published inLadies Home Journal and then later inMcCall's.[6] A selection of her columns was compiled in the bookIf You Ask Me: Essential Advice from Eleanor Roosevelt in 2018.[7]
An unusual advice column that foreshadowed internet forums was "Confidential Chat" in theBoston Globe. Launched in 1922 and published until 2006, readers both asked and answered questions without a columnist as intermediary.[8]
Advice columns proliferated in American newspapers early in the twentieth century as publishers recognized their value in capturing the interest of women, a key advertising demographic.[1] An advice column for teenagers, "Boy Dates Girl" by Gay Head, started inScholastic magazine in 1936.[9] Advice columns specifically for teens became more common in the 1950s, such as "Ask Beth" which began in theBoston Globe and was then syndicated to 50 papers.[1]
More recently, advice columns have been written by experts in specific fields. One example is sex therapistDr. Ruth Westheimer, writing forAsk Dr. Ruth.[10]
Unlike the broad variety of questions in the earlier columns, modern advice columns tended to focus on personal questions about relationships, morals, and etiquette. However, despite the perception that sex was not a topic in advice columns early in the twentieth century,[11] questions about sexual behavior, practices, and expectations were addressed in advice columns as early as the 1920s, although not in the explicit manner that can be found today.[1]
Many advice columns are nowsyndicated and appear in several newspapers. Prominent American examples includeDear Abby,Ann Landers,Carolyn Hax'sTell Me About It, and Slate.com'sDear Prudence. In the 1970s, theChicago Tribune andNew York Daily News Syndicate estimated that 65 million people read "Dear Abby" daily.[2] As recently as 2000, both the Ann Landers and "Dear Abby" syndicated columns were published in over 500 newspapers.[1]
Internet sites such as theElder Wisdom Circle offer relationship advice to a broad audience; Dear Maggie offers sex advice to a predominantly Christian readership inChristianity Magazine, and Miriam's Advice Well offers advice to Jews in Philadelphia. These days, men as advice columnists are rarer than women in print, but men have been appearing more often online in both serious and comedic formats.
Advice columns were not simply informational; from the days ofThe Athenian Mercury, they contributed to a sense of community in which readers not only learned from others' issues vicariously, but engaged with each other by offering their own answers to questions already published or by challenging advice given by the columnist.[2] David Gudelunas, in his bookConfidential to America, said "It was through reading columns such as "Dorothy Dix" and "Ann Landers" that Americans learned what the other half was up to—no matter what half they themselves represented."[1]
When people wrote letters, they were writing not only to the columnist, but also to their peers who would read about their problems. By discussing shared issues, advice columns contribute to a common understanding ofmores and communal values. For example, as a community dialog, "A Bintel Brief" provided Eastern European Jewish immigrants with advice on adjusting to American life and helped bridge their disparate national cultures. David Gudelunas states "Newspaper advice columns in the twentieth century are just as much about community discussions as they were in the seventeenth century."[1]
Readers took advantage of the anonymity of letters to advice columns to use it as a confessional. It gave them the opportunity to share information about themselves and their lives that, as many said in their letters, they were "too embarrassed" to tell people they knew.[1] The advice column, with its views into the lives of others, became a tool in ventures as disparate as children's counseling[12] and teaching English as a second language.[13]
A male British columnist felt that his column served several useful purposes: referrals to public services, education, and reassurance. He also noted the cathartic value to the letter writers.[14]
Due their national reach and popularity, advice columns could also be a tool for activism. In the 1980s, Ann Landers wrote an anti-nuclear column and encouraged her readers to clip it and forward it; over 100,000 letters were received by the White House. One million copies of her 1971 column supporting a cancer bill were sent toPresident Nixon.[1]
The "Agony Aunt" has become the subject of fiction, often satirically or farcically. Versions of the form include:
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